On the Trail: Missouri lawmakers' rocky relationship with 'local control'

House Minority Leader Jake Hummel, D-St. Louis, and Rep. John Rizzo, D-Kansas City, meet the press after the House adjourned for the year in May. Both men voted to dissolve foreclosure mediation ordinances in 2013.

“House Republicans think they should make important local decisions instead of local voters and elected officials,” Hummel, D-St. Louis, said in the statement. “I’m proud House Democrats took a strong stand today in defense of local control and the rights of local citizens to determine what’s best for them.”

“When we’re talking about following the constitution, all of us took an oath to defend and to support the constitution,” Hummel said. “Not only in the United States, but also in the state of Missouri. And I think that’s the difference between the two.”

Rep. Jeremy LaFaver, D-Kansas City, voted against Shaul’s bill and for the 2013 bill nullifying the foreclosure ordinances. He said that current day criticism about “local control” is about showcasing inconsistency within the GOP ranks.

“When it comes to local control as a stringent philosophy that is held, that is a philosophy that is largely held in the Republican Party,” LaFaver said. “That is not something Democrats largely agree on. There are a lot of times when federal laws are necessary. Local control and demanding local control has never been a philosophical standing point of our party.”

He went onto say that he thought his “colleagues mentioning issues of local control is less about the philosophy and more about pointing out the hypocrisy of the philosophy of the majority party.”

“In that, they run in every election cycle talking about bringing power back to the little people,” LaFaver said. “And they get up here and they throw out their strongly held philosophy almost immediately.”

Money in the bank?

But at least one person who’s followed both bills has another theory about why Democrats supported the anti-foreclosure mediation bill in 2013, while opposing Shaul’s legislation.

State Rep. Jeremy LaFaver, center, voted to nullify St. Louis and St. Louis County's foreclosure mediation ordinances in 2013. But the Kansas City Democrat says "local control" isn't a philosophical approach embraced by his party.

“There was just too much pressure and too much money involved,” Sneed said. “And nobody would take on that fight. I mean, we had at least one legislator say ‘I can’t spend that political coin on that.’ There are other issues that are much more timely. And a lot of them told us ‘the feds are going to come down with some rulings.’”

“Minimum wage has always been a bread and butter issue for the Democrats,” Sneed said. “They’ve always fought for it. And the plastic bag stuff? That just boils down to ‘Let the people in town decide what they want to do about plastic bags.’ I don’t know. It seemed like a ridiculous bill to just suddenly come up and say ‘Well, no. Everybody in the state should have a choice: plastic or paper. And that’s all there is to it.’ I mean, really? This is what you’re spending your time on?”

For his part, LaFaver said he didn’t feel that much pressure from banks or realtors to nullify foreclosure mediation ordinances. Rather, he said that he voted for the 2013 bill because some Democrats from the St. Louis area were supportive of the idea.

“If you are interested in this on a bipartisan basis to take this, then you’re going to know what’s best for your folks more than I am,” he said. “And so, I relied on my colleagues’ expertise to help guide me on that vote.”

Curtailing experimentation?

Still, it could be argued that Hummel’s initial point about “Soviet-style” meddling isn’t necessarily contradicted by recounting the saga of the anti-foreclosure mediation bill.

State Rep. Caleb Rowden, R-Columbia, doesn't buy the idea that limiting the power of local government is antithetical to conservative philosophy.

Credit Bram Sable-Smith I KBIA

After all, it’s pretty common for Republicans to talk about “getting government off” the people’s back or “reducing regulations” during a campaign season. Is using the power of state government to limit the power of local municipalities going against that philosophy?

For state Rep. Caleb Rowden, the answer is no. The Columbia Republican sponsored a separate bill that curtailed municipalities’ ability to “ban the box,” which is the shorthand for a policy that bars employers from asking employees about their criminal history. It also barred cities from raising the minimum wage or requiring certain employer benefits.

“I’m fine with local folks doing things more progressively than we do at the state level, if it’s within their confines of what they’re supposed to be doing,” Rowden said. “So it’s not as much about the policy. I said all along, this isn’t really an argument about the merit of ban the box – which I believe in its purest form isn’t a bad thing. Or the merits of a higher minimum wage or anything of those things. It’s just a matter of who should be making the decision in these cases?”

Rowden readily admits that state government gets “the role of government at the state level wrong all the time.” But he said that municipal laws could overly burden companies that operate within multiple cities. He also said that his city’s council – which proposed a plastic ban before withdrawing it – has gone too far.

“I was in Kansas City, and Mayor Sly James said ‘I wish your city council would calm down so we would stop getting thrown under the bus with them,’” Rowden said. “So you’re talking about the mayor of Kansas City – a liberal town for all intents and purposes. And they’re telling me that what we’re doing in Columbia is excessive and going too far in many cases. So I think that says everything you need to know about our current state.”

On the Trail, a weekly column, weaves together some of the intriguing threads from the world of Missouri politics.

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